that was my veil
by missymeggins
Summary: When she thinks about saying the words, "I heard you," or "I love you," her heart races so fast that she can't even tell if it's in fear or hope.


_That was my veil _| **castle** |castle/beckett | g | post _Killshot_

_._

_._

_._

_._

She hears the words leave her mouth without even thinking about them. "Yeah, I think I am."

And sitting in her therapists office, having survived the past few days, it _feels _true. She _feels _stronger and clearer, certain of what she wants; a life that isn't shackled by regrets or what if's, a life based around what she's gained, in strength and friends and _real _reasons to be happy, instead of the single thing she lost so many years ago.

She leaves the doctor's office with one clear thought in her head: "I'm going to tell him. Tomorrow, I _am _going to tell him."

But she doesn't.

She sleeps for almost 12 hours, a feat practically unheard of since she made Detective, but even so she wakes the next day with less energy than she expected. She's not exhausted like she was, and she crawls out from under the covers easily enough, and she makes it to work steady on her feet and present in her mind, thinking "I'm going to tell him."

But he hands her a coffee, like he always does, and smiles at her, like he always does, and when he sits down beside her desk and just waits for her to join him she feels so calm and so safe.

And she doesn't tell him.

(When she thinks about saying the words, "_I heard you," _or, "_I love you," _her heart races so fast that she can't even tell if it's in fear or hope.)

.

xx

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_It's okay, _she tells herself.

It's okay to take a few days to recover first. It's okay that she didn't just run straight to his apartment late at night to confess her love like some romantic comedy cliché.

But it's not really okay because it's not just a few days.

All of a sudden it's weeks and they've already had two more cases and every day has been the same; Castle by her side, coffee in her hand, and a heart full of feelings that she's still locking away.

And eventually she's back on that couch, with her knees to her chest again, feeling very much _not strong _or _clear _or anything at all.

"I _said _I was ready," she tells him, frustrated by how paralysed she feels._ "_It's not that simple is it?" she continues tiredly.

"Probably not," he tells her honestly. "But that doesn't mean it's not achievable."

She shakes her head because she doesn't quite believe him (even though she _has_ tried to and she _keeps_ trying in spite of how it makes her life feel like a merry go round that just won't _stop_) and finally gives voice to the question she's been trying so hard to ignore.

"So then what's it going to take to properly let go? _Why_ can't I take that first step forward? It shouldn't _be_ this hard to tell him how I feel." She pauses now, just briefly, and when she speaks again her voice is barely audible. "He did it."

He looks at her thoughtfully, putting his pad and paper down (possibly for the first time Beckett can remember since their sessions began) and begins speaking carefully.

"Is that what you think?" He waits for her answer but she just shrugs her shoulders, refusing to meet his eyes, so he continues anyway. "That's not how I see it. Based on what you've told me about your relationship, I'd say it wasn't easy for him to tell you at all."

Again she doesn't respond, unwilling to engage in this conversation because it's _hard _and she's so tired of things being hard. She wants simplicity and most of the time therapy feels like the last place she'll ever find it.

"Kate, have you considered that he was _only_ able to say it in the moment he thought he might lose you. It wasn't _easy. _If it had been don't you think he would have done it sooner too? And I'm sure it wasn't easy in the aftermath either. But even putting that aside for a moment, did it ever occur to you that you don't _need_ to be in competition with him about who expresses their feelings better?"

"I'm not trying to make it a competition," she says irritatedly. "And can you for once just make your point instead of asking _me _rhetorical questions?"

"Fine," he says calmly. "My point is this. Say it or don't say it. Do it when it feels right, when you're certain you _are _ready, but don't let it be about who said it first, or who said it better, or anything other than the fact it's the truth and you want him to know."

She plays with a loose thread on the couch and doesn't look him in the eye when she speaks. "But what if I'm not ever ready?"

"Then I guess you'll just have to be brave and find a way to say it anyway. Or not at all. It's up to you how much you want it."

She knows that what he's saying makes sense. It's just that bravery is exactly the thing she's afraid she's not capable of. She's never felt brave. Strong, yes - Kate Beckett knows how to _survive_. (Her life has been built on _surviving._)But she knows she's not _brave_. Not really. She's always been willing to take risks for other people – it's why she's so good at her job – but it's rare that she takes them for herself.

"Kate," she hears his voice pulling her back again and when she looks up his face seems softer than usual. "It's okay that you're struggling. It doesn't mean you aren't making progress."

"The thing is," she says bypassing the words of encouragement entirely because his earlier words have unlocked something in her head that she hadn't even realised had become so deep-seated. "You're right, it _isn't_ a competition. It's not - because he always wins. He always will."

"I'm not sure I understand," he says calmly, coaxing her to explain.

"Castle _is _better at expressing his feelings. He is. He's open and generous with his love. He's accommodating and loyal and he _wants _to make me happy," she tells him, and despite the positive meaning _he_ hears in those words, her voice betrays the distress they obviously cause her.

"Don't you think you deserve that?"

"That's not the point," she retorts, shaking her head emphatically. "I just - I don't think_ I _know how to be like that. And he deserves someone who is."

"Kate, it's not up to you to decide what he deserves or what he wants. I'm sure he's quite capable of doing that for himself. Just as you have to decide for _yourself_. What do_ you _want?"

"I want to be happy," she tells him, but there's no conviction in her voice. (She _does _want it. But she's exhausted from fighting it instead of fighting _for _it and she's quietly horrified at how easily she's let fear control her actions. Or rather, her _lack _of action. It's cowardly, she knows, but she wishes someone else could take control for her.)

"Be more specific," he pushes.

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and tries to forget she's in a therapists office. She shuts everything out, just a for a second, and tries to picture herself truly happy. The image that enters her mind is simple and in it she finds her answer.

"I want to try to be happy with _him._"

"Okay. So figure out how to make that happen. It's time to take action and actually _change _something Kate."

.

xx

.

She can't see _how_ to do that. She supposes she's found ways to make her peace with change – after all he _has _changed things since he came into her life and at some point she _did _stop fighting it. But even so, it's hard to remember a time when _she _was the driving force behind it.

(There was that one time, just before the summer, with a beer in her hand and a quiet resolution creating chaos in her stomach. But that was so long ago now and she honestly can't tell if things were _more _or _less _complicated back than. It feels like they've always managed to fit both definitions.)

She stops sleeping, tossing and turning most nights, as she tries to find the courage to actually follow through on her desires.

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xx

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One day she wakes next to Castle on a soft mattress and for a split second she actually thinks that maybe she'd finally worked up the courage to tell him how she feels and she smiles at the thought. She smiles at the _result_.

But of course, it's not reality.

What _is _real though, is that yet again they survive. And yet again she's faced with what she knows is a perfect opportunity to tell him how she feels, just as it was touching his collar and marvelling at his existence in that bank vault. Or later even, when they were standing in a shadowed corner of his apartment holding glasses of wine and reminding themselves of all the times they could have been lost.

There's been no end to the _right _moments to tell him and she realises that's become part of the problem. She keeps excusing her lack of action with the fact that _tomorrow _there will be another chance. In the back of her mind though she hears what she knows she needs to remind herself of more often: _but what if there isn't?_

Of course, the truly stupid thing is she has no problem flirting with him, spouting subtext and allusions to the truth of their relationship that have him choking on his words and looking at her with hope in his eyes. She can tell him she wouldn't mind being handcuffed to him again like it doesn't mean anything else, but she can't strip it down to the actual truth – that if she were brave enough she wouldn't _need _the handcuffs, that if she were brave enough she would simply _choose _to be with him.

The words are so close - she can feel them edging up the back of her throat - but as usual, once they leave her mouth they become something else entirely.

"But next time let's do it without the tiger."

It's not enough and she knows that but when she glances back at him she tells herself that this will be her starting point; this will be the last time she wraps her words up in unnecessary layers.

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xx

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When he arrives at their crime scene the next day she doesn't just take her coffee with a quick thank you like she usually does, but instead says, "Hey Castle, I'm glad you're here."

(He actually seems a little confused by that but she just smiles. He'll have to get used to it.)

And when they finally close the case she finishes her paperwork and turns to face him, making her voice clear and strong. "Can we go get a drink? I could use your company tonight."

He smiles and says "Of course," and they spend the next three hours at the Old Haunt with casual drinks and lazy conversation.

As he's walking her out, she turns and says, "We should do this more often."

So little by little, day by day, she practices telling him the truth. They're small truths to begin with but they're things he deserves to hear and what surprises her is that once she starts, they roll off her tongue with ease, until it seems perfectly natural to send him a text message that reads _I miss you_ after he's been gone for a week touring colleges with Alexis.

He answers her with: _Who are you and what have you done with my partner?_

For a moment it's hard not to reply in kind, with some silly lighthearted quip that will have them texting back and forth for hours, and leave her smiling contentedly at the familiarity of it all. But she reminds herself that contentment isn't is no longer good enough; _contentment _is the prison she's trying to break free of.

So instead she replies as truthfully and simply as she knows how: _Kate Beckett. Nothing. I just miss you._

He takes her cue. (He always has.) _I'll be back in no time. I've missed you too. _

.

xx

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"You know, I've never been good at picturing the future. Or, picturing _my _future to be exact," she tells Dr Burke.

"Is that something that bothers you?" he queries.

"It didn't used to. I figured life was so much easier if you just concentrated on the present. But this past year it's like I've been telling myself I wasn't even _allowed _to think of the future until I'd found my mom's killer, like that was the final obstacle."

"And now?"

"I can picture it with him. It's not that I've got this detailed image of what it will be like. I don't see our wedding, our whose place we'd live at, or where we'd go for vacation. But I can see him, there, _always_. I can see it without any obstacles. And it looks _real._"

Doctor Burke wonders if she realises how easily she's smiling in this moment but he doesn't comment on it, just asks, "So what are you going to do about that?"

She looks at him and for the first time in weeks he sees no fear. "I'm going to tell him how I feel."

"Are you sure you're ready?"

"Yes," she says. "I am."

.

xx

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And this time she really is.

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xx

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"Can we go somewhere to talk?" she asks him.

He's only been back for a day and they're in the middle of a case so it's really _not _the best time, but she chooses it anyway because being good at the waiting game isn't something she wants to be any more. There's no _winning _in waiting.

She takes him back to the park and they sit on the swings again. He looks at her with concern - and maybe a little fear – in his eyes.

"Beckett, is everything okay?"

"You know how I told you that I wouldn't be able to have the relationship I wanted until I'd solved my mother's death?"

He nods silently.

"I was wrong."

"Oh," he says, looking away. "So you – I mean, what does that -"

"Rick, look at me," she interrupts him.

He does. (She wants to reach for his hand but she doesn't because saying the words is what's important right now.)

"I was wrong because who knows when that will happen. Maybe I'll never solve it. And maybe if I did, then I'd find myself saying 'I need to wait until I've come to terms with it.' I was making excuses not to try because I was afraid. I want to have the relationship I want _now_, not in some arbitrary future that's dependent on things I can't control."

"Okay," he says cautiously. "So what _is _the relationship you want?"

She smiles, almost shy in the face of actually _saying _it but ultimately sure. Her heart doesn't race now but holds steady.

"Us," she tells him.

"Us?" he repeats questioningly, before a smile begins to show on his face. "You know, I seem to remember you once saying there was no us?"

"Castle, it might shock you to learn this but sometimes I'm wrong."

"Good to know," he says, actually grinning now. "So, there's an 'us' now? What exactly does that involve?"

"I was thinking we could have dinner at my place and find out," she tells him, reaching for his hand now and gripping it firmly in hers as she pulls him to his feet.

She holds onto it all the way to her apartment.

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xx

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"Us", as Richard Castle delightedly discovers, seems to involve Kate Beckett pulling him onto her couch for a long awaited makeout session, followed by dinner and laughter and her quiet voice saying, "I'm sorry it took me so long."

"I'm not," he replies warmly, running his fingers across her cheek, almost in awe that he can actually do that now.

She looks at him, eyebrow quirked just enough to indicate her confusion.

"It wouldn't have been worth it if you hadn't been ready Kate," he says simply. "And I would have kept waiting," he adds.

She doesn't have the words for this - she still has progress to make in terms of honesty and verbalising her feelings – so she just kisses him instead and hopes it's enough.

(It is.)

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xx

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She doesn't tell him yet that she loves him. And she doesn't tell him that she heard _him_ tell _her_. They haven't always been in sync but now that they are, she's ready to let things take their natural course.

One day the words "I love you," will come as naturally as the words "Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD."

But for now, for them both, "I want you," is more than enough.

.

xx

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Her therapy doesn't end here. Being in love with Richard Castle – being in a _relationship _with Richard Castle – doesn't erase the scars she bears. (It never will.)

But letting him see them, having him understand their stories, does help them begin to fade.

She continues to see Dr Burke once a fortnight and she works hard at becoming more than she used to be. She works at becoming braver, at becoming more open, at letting go of the weight that's held her down for so long.

And almost every night she falls asleep in Castle's arms, safe in the knowledge that who she is right now, will always be enough for him.

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xx

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End file.
